Page:The vested interests and the state of the industrial arts - ("the modern point of view and the new order") (IA vestedinterestss00vebliala).pdf/96

 foot up to something like one-half of the country’s annual production.

There is nothing gained by finding fault with any of this businesslike enterprise that is bent on getting something for nothing, at any cost. After all, it is safe and sane business, sound and legittmate, and carried on blamelessly within the rules of the game. One may also dutifully believe that there is really no harm done, or at least that it might have been worse. It is reassuring to note that at least hitherto the burden of this overhead charge of 50 percent plus has not broken the back of the industrial community. It also serves to bring under a strong light the fact that the state of the industrial arts as it runs under the new order ts highly productive, inordinately productive. And, finally, there should be some gain of serenity in realtsing how singularly consistent has been the run of economic law through the ages, and recalling once more the reflection which John Stuart Mill arrtved at some half-a-century ago, that, “Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.”